Sunday, August 31, 2008

He was glum and depressed all day and stared out the window of his stone cabin, looking at nothing.

Suddenly, a Jackrabbit hippity hopped past his window. Jim was filled with joy.

“Poetry might not be any darn good, but hunting Jackrabbits IS darn good!”

And so Jack put on his hunting jacket, a bright orange cap, hoisted a rifle over his should and slipped a little grey pen into his breast pocket in case there was anything out there that might be worth mentioning to somebody someday.

He was so happy that he was even whistling as he closed the door to his stone cabin, but–

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

In the times of the pharaohs, the birthdays of children and the birthdays of women were not celebrated. But the birthdays of PHARAOHS were lavish affairs: servants, slaves and freedmen took part in the celebrations. Even prisoners were released from the royal jails on the birthdays of pharaohs. I would not care to be a

Pharaoh, but I would enjoy being released from jail. I like to think that I would listen to the cheering and joy with my own personal joy which would increase as the cheering grew softer and softer in the distance until I could not hear the cheering at all. My thoughts would turn to freedom as they so often do, and to the sound of the crickets if there are any in Egypt, or honeysuckle vines (ditto) and then of course to Babylon, which would come around and plop its big butt down around here eventually.

Monday, August 11, 2008

I never tap my pen against my foreheadsearching for inspirationlike that poet did inNOTHING SACREDtrying to capturethe perfect imagethat might immortalizeHazel Flagg, beautiful,young, sweet, and dyingof radium poisoningalthough she really wasn’t,she just wanted a trip to New York–

And when her doctor, drunkenbut sweet, old, livelymisdiagnosed her as a victimof radium poisoning she asked“Why bother?” to tell anybody“that I don’t have radium poisoning?”

Instead, she saw it as an opportunitygolden, like a gold nugget in a sunsetthat is very golden, to visit

New York City, which she longedto do, irrespective of a death, whichwas not to be

And she would arrive to great fanfarein New York City, and the fetewould begin and the people would cheerheartily and the poets would tap their headsmercilessly–oh inspiration! Whither, etc...

I think of this when I, too, write, or whenCarole Lombard dies, not a false death at allnot radium poisoning at all, nounlike Hazel Flagg, played by Carole Lombard,instead, still, and on a mountain top, in the snow, her husband’s hands trying to find her, powder in the air, much more inspired than a poet you might find here or in the snow of